


A Little Bit in Love

by quantumoddity



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Boarding School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Friends to Lovers, Gay Awakening, M/M, Pre-Canon, Slow Burn, Trans Caleb Widogast, Trans Male Character, Urban Fantasy, college shenanigans, everyone is 16+, mentions of transphobia, oh my god they were roommates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-01 04:40:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21381163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quantumoddity/pseuds/quantumoddity
Summary: Whitestone Academy is the most prestigious boarding college in all of Exandria, welcoming young men from high society families across the continent.And, this year, Caleb Widogast.Caleb is determined to prove himself amongst his classmates and show them, and himself, that he deserves to be here.Percy de Rolo just wants to feel normal for a change, hard when your family owns the ground the school sits on.
Relationships: Percival "Percy" Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 19
Kudos: 106





	1. Chapter 1

_ I shouldn’t be here.  _

Caleb had hoped to feel something more than that, the very first time he crossed the gates of the Whitestone Academy. After how hard he worked to get here, everything he’d been through, everything he’d endured just to have the right to study here, he’d wanted something more than the crushing realisation that maybe everyone who’d doubted him had been right. 

_ I don’t belong here. I shouldn’t be here.  _

The uniforms were a combination of slate and heather grey, as if to match the cold exterior of the building itself, the only colour being the ivy growing up along the turrets and the slight gold edging on the school’s crest adorning every blazer in sight. The school simply looked ancient, the kind of structure that had stood here amongst the hills of north east Tal’Dorei for millenia and would stand for millenia more, defying all kinds of change. Standing in the courtyard was like standing in another time, a time much further in the past. 

But it wasn’t that making Caleb Widogast feel out of place. It was the other students. 

Though it would be hard to describe the difference between him and them with words, it was so obvious that they could be different species. It was in the way they carried themselves, the way their eyes passed over everything as if it had been all set there for them, all of it a backdrop to their performance. Their uniforms fit perfectly, they held their bags over their shoulders carelessly, they stood tall and confident. Most were human, some elven, some poised between the two. There were even some drow, few and far between, though that was where the variety ended. 

They came from money, they came from old families. They’d known since they could walk that this school, the most prestigious school in Exandria, with the most renowned magic department outside of the Solstryce itself, was the place they would be attending. 

_ I really don’t belong here. _

Caleb knew he was staring but he couldn’t help it. 

He’d sat all of the entrance exams and interviews in Rexxantrum, the closest city to his village, this was the first time he’d actually been to the academy. It had taken ages to get here, hopping on and off trains across half the continent and in that time he’d thought he’d imagined every possible combination of plush carpets, brass sconces and dark wood panelling, leaving him nothing to be impressed by. But in the flesh it was still astounding, like places he’d only ever read about in books. 

He took his acceptance letter out of his pocket and read it for what had to be the hundredth time. It was well folded, grime gathering in the creases from his pocket, from how many times he’d read it just to make sure this was all real. 

_ Due to your unique circumstances, please join the Headmaster for a meeting upon your arrival at the start of term.  _

That last sentence, before the polite farewell, made his chest pinch a little. Unique circumstances. Caleb hadn’t been able to figure out exactly what aspect of him that referred to. Probably all of him, if he was honest. 

He wasn’t an idiot. He knew he’d only been allowed to attend this school because of their need to at least be seen acquiescing to changing times. He knew he was a trophy. He knew he was a performance, designed so the people who ran the school could point and say look, our admission policies are perfectly fair. How else could you explain  _ him? _

They’d probably pause before allowing Caleb the designation of ‘him’, of course. But still. 

Caleb told himself he didn’t care. He was here, after scoring the highest grades in the entrance exams in decades. And he was going to do great things. 

The thought entered his head just as he took a corner and collided into someone. 

People came from all over the world to attend Whitestone Academy. 

Percy de Rolo could have walked. 

He didn’t of course, he took the car. That was his compromise with Father who would probably have sent him in the family carriage with a full accompaniment of trumpets to announce his arrival if he had his way. Behold, the next of my line. 

Instead he’d been able to look at least a little bit normal. Pretty much all the other boys had shown up in similar ways, a fleet of ridiculously fancy cars with personal drivers, enormous for reasons of showboating rather than to hold all of their stuff for a full semester away from home. 

Those golden words, as magical as anything taught within these walls. Away from home. Percy clung to that like a talisman, the idea of most of the year out of the mansion, away from his siblings irritating him like sand in his eyes, away from the eyes of his parents scrutinising everything he did for flaws. A chance to be himself, to go to lessons and join the rugby team and sleep in on Saturdays and eat in a hall full of rowdy teenage boys. A chance to  _ be  _ a rowdy teenage boy. 

Percy couldn’t wait. He’d been counting down to this day for years. 

He’d just come out of a meeting with the Headteacher, a man he’d already met at plenty of parties at Whitestone. His face when Percy had explained that, despite the requests of his father, he didn’t want one of the handful private tower rooms over one of the two person dorm rooms most of the students would be staying in, had been a picture. But he’d gotten his way in the end. 

Percy had a suspicion that would always be easy while he was here. The school was named after his bloody house. But he was determined that this would be the last time he’d do it, the last time he’d use his surname to change the course of things. 

He let the heavy oak door shut behind him and started down the corridor, eager to find his room and meet his roommate. 

He was already blissfully imagining the mess he’d allow to build on the floor when he collided hard with someone. 

Caleb gave a very undignified yelp, his rucksack tumbling to the floor. It burst open on impact, scattering his meagre possessions across the hardwood, his clothes, his books, his toiletries. 

“Oh gods, I’m so sorry,” he stammered, throwing himself to his knees and trying to claw it all back together, hoping it would give him an excuse not to look up and never know the face of the person he’d just embarrassed himself in front of, “I just… I wasn’t looking…” 

“It was my fault,” a nicely accented voice answered and, oh no, he was bending down and helping him, please no. 

Panic surging up like bile in the back of his throat, Caleb snatched his binder from an inch away from the stranger’s hand, desperately hiding it under some books. 

Not that it wasn’t going to be around the school soon, he’d had that depressing realisation long ago. But he couldn’t have that conversation with someone he’d just ploughed into in a random corridor five minutes after he’d arrived. 

“You can, um… I’m sure you’re busy, I’ve got this… “ Caleb tried to get out, in between chasing down his balled up socks. 

“It’s no trouble. I’m Percy by the way, are you just starting today too?” 

Realising the general rules of politeness meant he couldn’t avoid looking at him any longer, Caleb gave in. The word that instantly slapped him across the face was gorgeous. 

He felt himself sigh on the inside. Was he going to fall into a hopeless crush with every single one of his schoolmates?

Well hopefully they wouldn’t all have such angular jaws, sharp blue eyes and soft brown hair falling into said eyes. 

Though, even if they did, they’d probably be bullying him within the first half term. Which should make the crush wilt somewhat. 

“Yeah,” he said quickly, after too long a pause, “Yeah, we must be in the same year. I’m Caleb Widogast.” 

“Well, I’m glad to meet you,” Percy nodded politely, flashing a smile that Caleb was sure he was going to be seeing in his more hormone fuelled dreams. 

“Good to meet you too,” he mumbled, the way he always mumbled when he was nervous, “I’m sorry it has to be...like this.”

Percy laughed softly, finally passing over the items he’d managed to gather up, “I’ll pretend not to know you when I see you next and we can try again.” 

Caleb gave a nervous little laugh in return, following his lead, though he was more focused on getting his underwear out of the guy’s hand as fast as physically possible, “Sure. Sounds good.” 

As soon as everything was stuffed back into his bag, he took off down the hall, mumbling something indistinct about having a meeting to get to which was, in fairness, true. He left handsome Percy looking bemused under the gaze of the portraits of former headmasters. 

Percy watched the red haired boy go, blinking in confusion. 

His accent was different to his own, softer around the edges, an upward inflection. Less polished, less sculpted than the peers he’d grown up with. It stayed snagged in Percy’s mind for a long time after the boy himself had turned the corner. 

He seemed younger than Percy somehow, even though they were apparently in the same year. His uniform seemed to sit too large on his skinny shoulders, tie done up a little too tight to anchor it in place, blazer sleeves coming a shade too far down his arms. He’d given the overall impression of some nocturnal animal startled awake in the middle of the morning. 

His first classmate. Percy had been hoping to make a better impression but still, he seemed nice, if scared stiff of him. He winced internally, hoping that wasn’t going to be how everyone would react to him. He needed to get in ahead of his surname, try and seem normal and make friends before they could get weird about the fact that his father owned pretty much everything that surrounded the school grounds. 

He hoped there was still a chance to do that. He hoped his family hadn’t ruined yet another thing for him. 

Percy exhaled and checked the freshly printed welcome letter in his hand, with his amended room number. All of the dorms were on the second and third floors and it looked like he was in the very corner of the west wing, amongst the other first years. He mentally orientated himself and strode off to unpack and settle in, hoping idly in the back of his mind that the boy with the unusual accent wasn’t too embarrassed. 

If anything, Percy was a little impressed at how many books he’d had for so early in the term. 

Caleb still felt a little itchy even after he’d closed the door to the headmaster’s office and hurried in the direction of his new room. It was as if he could still feel those eyes on him, studying him like some kind of specimen, like a stray cat that had wandered in from outside and was a hair’s breadth away from being firmly ejected. 

He was told flatly, emotionlessly, that he would change in a separate room to the rest of his PE class and that the only reason he wasn’t in his own room was because the school was at capacity, as if Caleb had some kind of contagious disease. He was told any drop in his grades, at any point in the year, not just around finals, would put his scholarship under immediate review. He was told if there was any trouble with any of the other students that the administration became aware of, that threatened the reputation of the school as a whole, there would no longer be a place for him at the academy.

And that he would be immediately placed in the advanced magic classes with the upper students. 

The last part had been said somewhat grudgingly, Caleb felt. 

He wasn’t quite sure what sort of trouble the administration was expecting, he thought bitterly as he headed towards the west wing, or how he was going to cause it. Probably by existing. 

He chanted his room number in his head over and over so he didn’t forget it. Already, he could feel his palms start to sweat in his blazer pockets at the thought of meeting the boy he’d be sharing a room with for the rest of the year. He had a sinking feeling he’d cycle through quite a few, surely no one in their right mind would want to room with the scholarship boy from the back end of nowhere. 

Good thing he didn’t have many possessions to move. Maybe he wouldn’t even bother unpacking. 

Room 2.04 was the one on the end of the corridor, sort of tucked away on its own. Caleb could already hear voices behind most of the doors, laughing and cheering and chanting, the general celebratory air of the start of the school year and many boys’ first taste of freedom away from home. 

Swallowing hard, he hesitated with his hand on the doorknob. Maybe his roommate would be somewhere else, off with the boys he probably already knew from a childhood of high society parties. Maybe he’d have a little lucky break. 

Either way, the journey and the grilling from the headmaster had exhausted him. He wanted a bed and the only way to get one was to open the door and pray for a little luck. 

He didn’t get it. 

Someone was already sat on the left hand bed. Someone with sharp blue eyes, soft brown hair, neat circular glasses. Someone gorgeous. Caleb’s heart hit the bottom of his shoes with a thud. 

Percy gave a slight, nervous smile, clearly trying to make the best of the situation, “Uh...have we met before?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Percy and Caleb are finding their feet in their new school

As the first few weeks of term went on, Percy learned a lot about his new roommate. It was just that very little of it came from Caleb himself.

Mostly out of passivity, Percy found himself hanging around in a loose group of boys he’d known all his life but never really found himself liking, sons of his father’s friends and associates. And very often the conversation would turn, rarely kindly, towards his red haired roommate, who he’d apparently been paired with at the last minute after he’d gone against his father’s demands and requested a room in the dorms. Percy grimly couldn’t imagine any other scenario where the son of their most generous donor and someone like Caleb, dragging around the multitude of reminders that the school was embarrassed to have him here, would be placed together. 

Depending on which part of him they felt like needling, the boys would joke about his too big uniform, his almost impossibly tiny frame, the fact that he was trans. Percy never joined in, just sitting there with his distaste hidden behind quick subject changes and pretending he couldn’t hear. 

But he never walked away either. 

As much as he didn’t like what his sort of friends said about Caleb, he couldn’t help but be maddeningly curious about him. A few times, on late evenings, when he’d be idly thumbing his way through his brand new copies of the assigned texts for their classes, stretched out on his bed, and Caleb would be in amongst a fortress of his own second hand versions of the same books, Percy would try and start conversations. Caleb would flinch whenever he did, as if the casually thrown out words were blows, and then give small, singular answers like he was being interviewed. Like everything was a test. 

Percy would give up after a few questions got him nowhere, not wanting to make Caleb more uncomfortable. 

What he didn’t learn from the jeers and whispered comments of his peers in the dining hall and corridors outside of classrooms, Percy picked up from observation. The two of them shared a bedroom, a bathroom and he couldn’t help but notice things. 

There were textbooks on Caleb’s bed that he didn’t recognise, even with Percy taking a full load of classes. After a little waiting and watching, catching sight of Caleb in the hallways, he eventually pieced together that they were required reading for anyone taking classes in magic. Spellwork wasn’t even an option for freshmen, you could only take those classes in later years and, even then, after a unique set of aptitude tests. But there were the books and there was some homework on his lap, sheets of symbols that were as incomprehensible to Percy as his mechanical blueprints probably were to other people. 

Some things were less interesting, more worrying. 

Percy laced up his rugby boots carefully, methodically. He couldn’t afford for them to slip.

They had been gifts on his last birthday from his sister Vesper, the only gifts he’d felt had been bought for him rather than who his family imagined he was. They were sleek black things, moulded studs clacking in a very satisfying way when he walked. They were beautiful. 

All he had to do now was make the team so he had a chance to wear them. 

He was so wrapped up in his own nervousness, he didn’t hear the bathroom door opening. 

He did hear the embarrassed squeak Caleb loudly emitted as he realised the room he’d just walked into, wearing nothing but a towel wrapped around his body. 

Percy jumped, well aware of how horribly red he instantly turned, “Sorry!”

Caleb looked like he was ready to bolt but somehow also simultaneously frozen, like that horrible midway state in a nightmare, being desperate to flee but unable to move, “I...I thought you’d be at the trials already.”

If he wasn’t so laser focused on how much he wanted to curl up into a tiny ball, Percy would have been a little impressed that Caleb knew where he’d been going. How much attention had his shy roommate actually been paying?

“I’m just about to head out, it’s not until half past,” he grimaced apologetically, jumping up, “I’ll head out.” 

He’d told himself not to. He’d done so well, training his eyes on Caleb’s face no matter how awkward that made it but as he turned, they fell. Even after so long at the school, Caleb still had the deep set tan to his lower arms and legs, the one that showed how much time he’d spent working in the sun. That surprised him. 

And he was so, so thin. Dangerously thin. About to snap sort of thin. 

The kind of thin that only came from never having enough. 

Percy bit his lip, ducking his eyes. He hadn’t realised just how much Caleb was hiding. 

Before the door closed, he caught a small, shy voice, so soft it was like it was deciding whether to speak up at all. 

“Good luck, Percy.” 

He was so stunned, he just stood for a moment while the door clicked behind him, eyes wide. 

He was learning more and more. Maybe he’d start hearing it from Caleb himself. 

Lunch the next day was it’s usual noisy affair. Even boys raised by money were still boys and when they were crowded in together, hungry and itching after being in lessons all day, they let themselves go a little. 

Percy deliberately showed up a little late, going to see his Engineering professor about homework he didn’t really need help with, so he knew when he entered his usual group would already be seated and Caleb would already be off in the corner, a book propped behind his plate like a shield. He got his own meal and quickly, purposefully, walked right past his table and sat a seat down from Caleb, as far from them as it was physically possible to be. 

Caleb didn’t notice at first, pupils darting along the lines, too lost in what he was reading like his brain was as hungry for the words as his body was for the food in front of him. But he slowly seemed to realise that a lot of startled eyes were on him and he looked up furtively, already half cringing for a blow. 

“Hey,” Percy said quietly, casually, like there was nothing unusual about their situation. 

Caleb looked utterly stunned, spoon paused halfway from his mouth to his plate, “Um...hey.”

“Good day?” he continued in the same light, unconcerned tone, sipping his water idly.

“Um...yeah. Fine,” Caleb’s eyes darted between Percy and Percy’s glaringly vacant seat over with the other young gentry of Whitestone. He looked like someone waiting to hear the punchline of a joke clearly at his expense. 

“Did you understand a single thing Professor Mattheison was saying?” They shared a mathematics class. 

The tips of Caleb’s ears went red and he risked a smile, “No. It sounded like he was talking another language.”

Percy chuckled, “You’re lying. You knew exactly what he was talking about.”

Caleb seemed to shrink, like his first assumption was that his intelligence was something to be ashamed of. But when Percy did nothing but look at him expectantly and smile, he relaxed. 

“Well...okay, I did. But he didn’t explain it very well.”

Percy laughed, almost deliberately loudly. Loudly enough that those few friends of his that weren’t already starting incredulously now definitely were. After a few beats, Caleb laughed along with him. It was more of a slight chuckle but Percy expected that was as close as Caleb ever got. 

“Hey,” Percy ventured, feeling it was probably okay at this point, “Do you want my garlic bread? I’m not going to eat it.”

Caleb looked down at his own bare plate and across to Percy’s, expression hesitant but there was definite desire in them. They weren't permitted seconds and Caleb always ate every scrap of what he had, not quickly but certainly in a way that suggested he wanted to eat quicker but was self conscious about it. And now Percy knew why.

“Sure,” Caleb murmured, taking it and immediately falling on it. 

Percy smiled in relief, though not when Caleb was looking.

Things went like that for a while. Percy divided his mealtimes equally between Caleb and his usual group. When he sat with his old friends, he’d pointedly ignore questions about his change in routine, only answering when pushed with a curt, “He’s my roommate. Why wouldn’t I sit with him?”

The other boys were always careful around Percy, like he was their version of his father, the head of their little microcosm of their parent’s infinitely more complex social hierarchy. Most of the time it just made him feel awkward and exposed, like he was the lead in a play but he hadn’t learned his lines. But now he could use it to his advantage, drawing on the well of de Rolo ‘how dare you even breathe the same air as me’ face everyone in his family seemed to have. The snide remarks and comments about Caleb lessened whenever Percy was around them, though he had no doubt they continued as soon as he was out of earshot. 

When he was with Caleb, he would always eat no more than half his meal, no matter how hungry he was, even if he’d just come straight from the rugby pitch and was ravenous. The rest he’d slide along to his roommate, insisting he wasn’t in the mood, that it would just go to waste anyway. 

Caleb wasn’t a fool, evidenced by the fact that most of the books he brought down to dinner were in another language or had diagrams in them so complex they made Percy feel a little dizzy. He clearly had some idea of what Percy was doing, it was there in his eyes. But he didn’t refuse. 

Initially it seemed to be some kind of grudging acceptance, a realisation that if he was going to be made fun of, if this was all going to turn out to be an elaborate joke, he may as well get some extra food out of it. But after a few weeks with no reveal, no punchline, he seemed to relax a little. Soon they were having what could even be called a conversation, the book closed and resting between them rather than serving as a barrier. 

And when the door closed on room 2.04, Caleb came to life even more. Though he spent most of the evenings tackling the mountain of homework he always seemed to get in between they would sit on their beds and chat, both of them feeling something unwind inside their chests. Like they could say anything, things they wouldn’t dare say beyond their little room. 

Like someone was actually listening to them. 

Part of Caleb, the part that was left cold and small and scared after years of never really having friends, of having people hide sneers behind their smiles for a variety of different reasons, told him what a bad idea this was. He had no reason to trust Percy, beyond a silly little crush on him that was certainly not helped by his roommate’s tendency to lounge around in rugby shorts. He smiled kindly, he shared with him, he spoke softly but other people had done that before and still something soured, turned them cold and vaguely disgusted with Caleb. 

But the rest of him was charmed enough, desperate for companionship enough to not listen. He’d been caught off guard by just how homesick he was, thinking naively that his desire to be here at the most prestigious school in the world, the one he’d worked so hard to attend, would mean he’d never think of home. But, two months in, he was finding himself desperate for another voice to speak to him kindly, for someone to smile and ask how his day was going, to show some small amount of care. Even if Percy would eventually tire of playing the charitable friend to the sad little scholarship boy he’d been lumbered with, for now it was something Caleb needed so badly the eventual hurt was worth the risk. 

“So, wait, you built it yourself? A working dimmer lamp? When you were  _ seven?” _

It might have just been the light, but the tips of Percy’s ears seemed to go a little pink, “Come on, Caleb, you were probably making things levitate and fly around the room at that age. And I bet you didn’t need gears and wires to do it.”

Caleb had to admit, his affinity for magic, gleaned from nothing but the scant few arcane books the town had to offer, had come about around that time. But he was no less impressed. 

“Still, that’s incredible,” he insisted, hugging his knees to his chest, “How did you get all the stuff you needed?”

A mischievous look flitted across Percy’s face, “I took apart my older sister’s vanity and a few toys my younger sister never played with. Cassie didn’t mind but Ves was furious. After she chased me around the house, my parents started getting me the equipment I needed. I think they clicked on that if I wasn’t given it, I’d just take it and cause more trouble.”

Caleb felt a little pang, he’d have loved that kind of closeness with a sibling. Growing up on a farm by himself had come with its lonely moments. 

“So you’re kind of a tinkerer, huh?”

“Yeah,” Percy gave a little shrug, like it was something he was used to defending, “I just like seeing how things work. Taking them apart, trying to put them together in different ways, making stuff entirely new.”

“That’s a little like magic,” Caleb observed, resting his chin on his knees. He was a little warm, in his oversized school sweater and trousers, but no way would he take any of it off.

“How so?”

“Well, all the wizards who came before came up with their symbols and their spells and all of this. Anyone can learn them and reuse them. Only great wizards can take those components and see new ways of linking them so you can make something that no one has ever thought of before in the thousands of years we’ve been working with them.” 

Percy smiled rather than looked concerned at Caleb’s outburst, none of the usual second hand embarrassment people usually responded with when he talked like a textbook. 

“And that’s what you’re going to do, huh?”

Caleb blushed, knowing he looked like a tomato when he did, thanks to his red hair, “I mean...maybe. I’d like to try.”

Percy shifted, long legs left mostly bare by his shorts lying crossed over each other now. Caleb winced at how obsessively he was paying attention to them, “Well, not that I know a damn thing about magic. But if there’s anyone who could do that, I bet it’s you.” 

Caleb didn’t know what to say to that. He was already blushing, his body had no response left so he just kind of stammered and looked down. 

Percy seemed to get it anyway, standing up and stretching his arms up above his head, “I’m going to shower before I turn in, alright? Turn the lights off if you want to, I’ll manage.”

“Sure,” Caleb swallowed, eyes flickering to the clock and seeing it was incredibly late. As much as he’d loved to lose himself in the new book he’d checked out from the library, he didn’t want to be yawning his way through tomorrow’s classes. 

His eyes snapped straight forward again at the whisper of fabric against skin as Percy, apparently trying to kill him no matter how unknowingly, casually swept his loose white shirt over his head and let it drop to the floor on his way to the bathroom. 

_ Stop _ he snapped at himself, trying to turn his full attention to climbing under the covers, pulling them up high over his head. The sound of running water and Percy humming softly was muffled until it could have been happening two whole rooms away. 

But part of him still strained towards the sound. 

_ This is the last thing you need,  _ he growled as he snapped his fingers and killed the lights, not even taking a moment to enjoy how easy that had become,  _ you’ve finally gotten a friend, don’t ruin it with a stupid crush.  _

Caleb paused as the exhaustion he spent his day shoving to one side finally crept up on him. He’d never even thought that word before but there it was, refusing to budge and actually feeling like it belonged there. 

He had a friend. Percy was his actual friend. 

He’d come to this school expecting to find powers inside himself he hadn’t known were there, he’d come expecting it to be the first step in learning to bend all of reality to his will and control the world that had refused to let him in for so long. 

But this was the one thing he’d ever expected. 

**Author's Note:**

> Pleeeeease consider leaving a comment! I'm over on Tumblr, @mollymauk-teafleak!


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